


as long as she is with me

by Helendmeyourears



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26207299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helendmeyourears/pseuds/Helendmeyourears
Summary: Andromache may have helped Quynh survive, but it was Quynh that brought Andromache back to life.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	as long as she is with me

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "I Know Where I'm Going," the live Harry Belafonte version. Beautiful song, highly recommended

In the desert heat of the summer sun, time seems to melt almost to a standstill, slow as creeping sap making its way down the tree of life. Andromache hates it.

It is bearable, in that moment, only because of the woman beside her. Andromache may have helped Quynh survive, but it was Quynh that brought Andromache back to life. Or as close as people like them could come to it. She has never thought of it in terms so grand as hope, never tried to define it with words at all. If she thinks about it- when she thinks about it- it is a language older than any she speaks.

It is Quynh, handing her a flask before she could even ask for it. Quynh, guiding Andromache’s hands with her own, patiently demonstrating the proper way to peel a vegetable. Quynh, and all of her different smiles, the secret ones she shares only with Andromache and the ones that put the sun to shame for the world to see.

Andromache still remembers the first. She’d cut the palm of her hand, held it out to Quynh like an offering. Quynh had taken it, turning it over and over, this way and that, looking for a wound that was no longer there. And she’d smiled. A small, quivering thing, full of wonder and a glimmer of sharp edges that Andromache recognized within herself.

And here they are, some time later, traversing another vast desert. Together. It seems almost a dream, but Andromache has enough experience with them to know it is not.

She sits on the bank of a large pool they found earlier, dangling her bare feet in the cool water. Quynh wades in up to her shoulders, swimming contentedly as a fish, her long hair flowing around her in a dark halo.

“I dreamt of you,” Andromache tells her.

Quynh glances at her, but keeps going, moving around the pool in a slow circle.

Andy picks a small, white flower from the edge of the bank, twirls it in her fingers, the petals fluttering gently as they spin. She hopes they are not poisonous. This part of the world is a stranger to her, as unfamiliar as the concept of steady companionship, and undying as she is, she knows that pain (or itching) is not out of the question.

But the flower is lovely, and it has not harmed her yet. So she holds it, and she confesses, and Quynh stops and tilts her head to the side and listens, though they both know she won’t understand most of it. They have not been travelling long enough to learn much of each other’s languages; even with Andromache’s care, it had taken time for Quynh to return to comparative wellness. It took weeks for her to even give her name.

“I dreamed of you for years, and searched for you longer than that, though I had not known that it was you I have been waiting for.”

Quynh looks curious, as she has more and more recently. She is not a child, and nor does she act like one, but there is something about her curiosity that strikes Andromache as that of someone new to life. Technically, it is new to this one particular life, as she has not died again since Andromache found her. She never would again, if Andromache could make it so. She almost wishes she could, watching Quynh watching her, idly combing a hand through her curtain of hair.

“Did you dream of me?” she asks. She does not know what she wants the answer to be. Would it have helped? Would Quynh have still gone into that first desert, alone and unprepared, determined to walk away from everything until she could no longer walk at all?

Quynh senses that Andromache is asking something of her, and after a moment, swims up to the edge, coming to a stop before her. She tugs on Andromache’s left ankle.

Andromache looks away, unsure, something about the thought of getting into the water with Quynh sparking a nervous energy in her stomach.

The cold sting of droplets splashing across her face startles her attention back to Quynh. Quynh is smiling, a mischievous angle to her lips this time, and tugs on Andromache’s leg more insistently.

What do you have to lose? A voice in her head whispers.

The question laps at her like the water she submerges herself in, as she lets Quynh take her hand and lead her further into the pool, gesturing for Andromache to recline so that they are both floating on their backs.

She does not let go of Andromache’s hand. They drift there, together, faces warm in the light of day, tethered by their intertwined fingers, their unspoken connection. There will be no separating, no parting by the flow of water or time. Not while they are here, like this.

Everything, she knows, is the answer. Everything.

**Author's Note:**

> [Slaps fic] This baby can hold so much symbolism or whatever in it- time, night blooming cactus flowers, and otters, oh my.
> 
> As always, feedback is loved and appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr @astral-kaysani


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